


Vertigo

by dunkelgrau



Category: Marvel Avengers Movies Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Angst, Flirting, Gen, Haunting, Mental Health Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-24
Updated: 2012-04-24
Packaged: 2017-11-04 06:37:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/390871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dunkelgrau/pseuds/dunkelgrau
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is the story of wiretapping, murders, mental disorders, frozen brandy, alien memories, and one grinning god.<br/>Or it isn't.<br/>Agent Coulson cannot be really sure.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Vertigo

**Author's Note:**

> I need to thank people who requested such a fiction from me, and gorgeous [RadicalJo](http://radicaljo.tumblr.com/) for her enormous help with the translation; this wonderful person took care of the most foreign parts, and I bet without that help this text would have looked too alien. It was originally written months ago in Russian, and I still can't believe we managed to get it into English.
> 
> I hope we succeeded and this is PROPERLY CREEPY.
> 
> P.S.:  
> No spoilers for Marvel's "The Avengers" detected. I'm just pleased with the fact I managed to write this in such a way, that this text doesn't contradict the movie.)))

There is a laptop sitting slightly to the left of one of his interrogators; it blinks with static. He’s only made aware of it because the refresh rate of the monitor plays hell with his already painfully aggravated eyes. The questions that they ask are so familiar that he doesn’t have to think about the answers; name and rank, age, years of service with S.H.I.E.L.D., level of classified access. It’s almost word for word off the questionnaires used to prepare newer agents. Coulson knows this because he developed most of them.

He tenses when he answers wrong; he knows what it means.

“No, Sir. Today is the twentieth. It’s Friday.”

“According to my calculations, today is Wednesday.” He says quietly and looks up sharply, towards one of the interrogators, focusing enough to ask a question- clearly aware of the fact that he doesn’t actually want to know the answer. “Agent Sitwell, what happened on Wednesday, exactly?”

Sitwell’s face was impassive; it betrayed nothing – which was unprofessional, in Phil’s opinion. It’s too noticeable as compared to his usual mannerisms. He is obviously trying to keep from being too emotional about the entire situation, which is rather disturbing. Even more disturbing is when a hint of genuine concern works its way into the agent’s voice when he says, “You don’t remember, do you, Sir?”

~°~°~

Phil Coulson couldn’t remember exactly when he noticed the first evidence that someone else had been in his apartment. Frankly speaking, it was nearly impossible to hide within that sterile space. It contained almost nothing personal and he was astonished by the idea that it could actually be done. Eventually Phil was hard pressed to not feel a bit of professional respect for the intruder’s continual evasion. 

The professional respect was swiftly followed by professional irritation. 

Then one day, there was a message on his phone. It was delivered on a Thursday. 

_That tie doesn’t suit you._

No return number. It was as if the message had been written and saved by Phil, himself. Phil didn’t analyze how the message had gotten into the inbox of his S.H.I.E.L.D. issue cell phone, he just changed his tie — to keep the conversation going and to get more information, naturally. 

 

The following Tuesday, Phil started smoking again. 

He’d quit once before, many years ago (for good, he’d told himself), after the explosion at the armory, which he’d had the dubious good fortune to witness. He didn’t even smoke after having to talk to Stark. But, after a full week of strange dialog with _someone_ , he couldn’t do it anymore. Phil began to doubt himself, question his mental faculties. What if all those messages were just a physical manifestation of a split personality? Was he having memory lapses? Were they symptoms of disorders, or of poisoning? Where they the consequences of a possible traumatic brain injury? His training gave him reasons to question his sanity from time to time; it helped him to remain objective under most circumstances and to judge any situation without fear of favor. But, in this particular case, it didn’t help at all. Coulson could easily assume the very real possibility of violations of his mind. 

In fact, he could assume that _far too easily._

The messages form his inbox mocked him mildly as they complained about his daily habits; advising, prompting— they even offered to change Director Fury’s passwords once, just for a laugh. They were sympathetic about the intolerable carelessness from Stark, the impenetrable heroism of Rogers. At some point, Coulson replied to one of them out loud and found that he was actually waiting for a response. 

Morning coffee was already waiting for him despite the fact that he clearly hadn’t had time to make it. His computer was on, several times, tuned to internet news channels. The messages even approved of Phil’s choice of pajamas, once. 

He wasn’t even that surprised when, one night, something intangible lit his cigarette for him. 

“Thank you.” He said, automatically.

There was the briefest sound of a mocking chuckle around the area of his right ear, before his cell phone received another message. _’Phil, you’re a smart man-‘_ “That’s the problem.” Phil said and exhaled smoke. _’… sure you know who it is you’ve just thanked?’_

Coulson snorted and flicked ash into a saucer from an old coffee set. The ashtrays used to be out of question at his apartment for many years. “I’m not at work. I can thank anyone I want; God or Devil. Even _you_.”

Coulson felt the laughter, when it came, more than he heard it, and he felt pressure across his cheek, as though someone had touched him; a brief caress. His phone didn’t receive any more messages that night. 

Coulson went to bed late. 

 

It was a Friday night when Phil woke up, suddenly. It was as though someone had touched him or called his name. He realized, soon after, that what had roused him was just a slight adjustment of his blanket. It was a reflexive, knee jerk reaction, because no one but him was supposed to be in his apartment. 

“You know, this is weird.” Phil said to the empty air. “Is avoiding corporeal form a matter of personal principal or what?” 

The lightest echo of the touch that had woken him, faded. His cell phone buzzed from his bedside table. _’Would it be more or less weird if you saw me tucking you in while I wore my great horned helmet?’_

Coulson took a minute to think about his reply. “It would be weird of you were wearing _only_ your helmet, I think.”

There was a quiet, derisive snort and with only the pale light of his cell phone, Phil witnessed something invisible place a large helmet on the night stand. The streamlined piece of armor clanked against the wood of the table as it came to rest. It had enormous curved horns that protruded from the front of it and it seemed as though it shouldn’t be able to stand on its own, though it clearly was. Phil reached out, on a whim, and rapped his knuckles against the side of the helmet; if it was only a hallucination, it was a hellishly material one.

Phil put his cell phone next to the helmet and turned over. “Good night,” he said to the darkness. There was no reply. The helmet, of course, was gone when he woke the next morning.

 

The following Friday was the first time he faced a mirror with a reflection that wasn’t his own. He had been given an order to take two days of leave — a minor injury, nothing serious. He maintained that it was only a scratch but the physicians all agreed that he was to take the time off. What made Coulson truly relieved was the fact that he wasn’t shaving at the moment he glanced in the mirror. He could have had cut his throat at the moment the reflection stared back at him with wide open green eyes, too innocent to believe them. The man who was watching Coulson from the mirror was pale with sharp, chiseled features that reminded Phil of ancient sculptures. It was a stark contrast to Phil’s unshaven, washed out face, complete with the welted, purple bruise that had bloomed on his temple. 

“You flatter me with your reflection.” He said, finally.

The reflected image smiled and Phil though that maybe that was the first time that he’d ever watched something so utterly predatory and so completely charming. He was unsure what to feel when the smile faded; relief or regret. 

Saturday was filled with insomnia. The injuries from Friday, mixed with the adrenaline and the general exhaustion that came from what equated as being haunted, provided a strange result — Phil Coulson was too tired to sleep. At some point, long after midnight, through the dim fog of thoughts in his head, too many painkillers and too little rest, Phil felt a familiar intangible presence. 

“Sleep.” The darkness whispered. 

Phil obeyed. 

 

He was almost sure that he would wake up, frustrated by lack of sleep, at around six thirty in the morning, or earlier, due to old military discipline. It was almost noon, he was surprised to find. Both his cell and landline were switched off; something he didn’t remember doing. He could also hear his coffee maker buzzing from the kitchen; the sound of milk being steamed for cappuccino. 

When he got up, Phil didn’t turn his phones back on.

In fact, for the entire day, Phil made no effort to be active, at all. The most active thing he did was to find a box with old books, stored in a cupboard. He pulled out a textbook on clinical psychiatry and spent several hours reading. Later that day, after having watched several seasons of some terrible show about ex-wives, Phil had found several symptoms of Kandinsky-Clerambault syndrome in his recent behavior. At some point he realized he never looked in the mirror that day. When he finally made a trip to his mirror, the reflection was only his own, though he was missing the bruise on his temple. 

He did not remember how he fell asleep that day. 

 

The next time he was conscious, it was Sunday. An unnatural, oppressive feeling woke him; a normal human arm could never weigh as much as the one which rested around his waist. The cold chill of Loki’s armor pressed against Phil’s ribs and made it difficult to breathe. The trickster was sleeping, his nose pressed to the top of Phil’s head, and Coulson couldn’t decide if what he was feeling was terror or not. Phil made the smallest movement to try to get up; Loki tightened his grip, his strength certainly not that of a human, and held Phil on the spot. As Coulson vividly imagined his lungs exploding due to incredible pressure increases, the arm vanished. 

“It would be nice,” Phil groused as he sat up and touched his abused ribs, “if you decided exactly how solid you wanted to be.” 

There was a quiet chuckle that touched the periphery of the distinguishable sound spectrum and Phil felt something brush against his forehead. Something that, if he didn’t know better, felt not unlike a kiss. The touch was so light that Phil could just as easily convince himself that it was only his imagination, a dream, which, like the rest of the day, Phil would not remember.

 

Things were considerably worse on Tuesday. 

Although Phil was confident that everything looked to be in order, Tuesday was worse because he didn’t remember Monday. All the wires and signaling devices were disconnected. The land line cord had been neatly severed and, judging by the calls to his cell phone, the agents at HQ were aware and ‘trying to resolve the situation’. They had no idea that the problem was on Phil’s end. If he’d talked to them, Phil didn’t remember it, just like he didn’t remember how he got a thin, deep cut on his wrist. It was precise, almost surgical, along the line of veins. 

The only thing he could remember was Sunday morning, a whole lot of nothing and then Tuesday afternoon. He was alone in his apartment, dressed in his suit, standing on his desk to remove the register that was above him. Though it was disorienting, Phil calmly finished what he’d apparently begun; he took a tiny wireless microphone from the vent, replaced the register and hopped down from the desk. After he moved the piece of furniture back to its original position, Phil took a moment to wonder what in the _Hell_ was going on.

The microphone was not one commonly used by the agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. It was a much more subtle device, not unlike something Tony Stark would have developed, if he’d had the inclination. Phil destroyed the device and then spent the next several moments to study the remains. There was something wrong with where the microphone had been left; it was too obvious. Was it a prank or was it a hint that there were many more in the apartment, better hidden?

Phil desperately lacked the context for this situation. The blanks in his memory meant that any attempt to piece together what was happening would be meaningless. 

He didn’t want to admit it, but he was scared. 

 

Later that evening, the memories started to resurface. Fragments of images surfaced so chaotically and so rapidly that it made Phil sway, suddenly dizzy, and he had to sit down. His mind could not cope with the onslaught or the random way that the memories came to him. There was no order to them; he had no idea what was real and what were only abstract figments of his imagination. Phil sincerely hoped that his real memories didn’t include poisonous snakes with feathers on their heads, or snow covered monuments of Director Fury, or the dismembered corpse of Tony Stark. Loki was there, too, which was a little more likely as they had definitely spoken on Monday. He just needed time to remember their conversation. 

 

Loki came to him at dusk, casually, as though he belonged there and was welcome. Phil turned away to get the brandy from the wet bar and when he looked up, Loki was there, fully tangible — a dark cold god, neither angry nor triumphant, just standing right there. 

“Get another glass, agent.” Loki didn’t ask. He sat down in Phil’s armchair and leaned back, surveying. “Let’s talk.”

Phil couldn’t find a better answer than, “The apartment is bugged.”

Loki waved away his apparent concern. “It doesn’t matter while I’m here.” 

Phil decided that it was strange to actually see Loki, as he offered the brandy. Loki accepted the glass with the thinnest upturn of his lips; barely a smile. Phil considered the shape of the glass as he turned to pour a drink for himself; the glass was designed in such a way that the body heat from the drinker should slowly warm the contents of the glass. But, in the hands of Loki, the brandy was far more likely to freeze and shatter the glass…

“To vertigo.” Loki toasted, his glass raised, mocking. 

Phil returned the toast. “I’m just… curious; why have you focused so much of your attention onto one man? What have I done to draw your eye?” Coulson sat in the opposite armchair and sipped the brandy. 

“Your mind is sharp and extremely adaptive, agent.” Loki said without a smile. “Tell me; what is it you dream of when you sleep?” 

‘He knows.’ Phil thought with an unexpected feeling of total tranquility. ‘That’s the vertigo he drank to, my returning memories.’

“ _Tell me._ ” Loki repeated, softly.

The glass in Phil’s hand cracked, freezing almost instantly. 

“Snakes.” Coulson said, reluctantly. “Dead men; it seems like there was a ship, incredibly immense—“

“That would be Naglfar. You’ve seen Nilfheim, a rare honor for a mortal”. Loki smiled and it was almost serene. “What else, agent?”

Phil closed his eyes for a second. “Golden towers. There are constellations and nebulae, moving slowly over an enormous, shining city and an endless… sparkling—“ At this, he hesitated, unsure how to put words to the image. 

“Rainbow Bridge.” Loki finished, for him. “That is Asgard. I think, if you try harder, you will remember Jotunheim and Muspellsheim and other worlds, and their shadows. Excellent.”

“I will _remember_?” Phil repeated slowly, as he set his useless glass down on the table. It was more ice now than glass, anyway.

“You will.” Loki said. “You have a great deal to remember, agent, and a bit to forget. The merging process is going well, but I do not want you to remember all these unnecessary little talks of ours.”

Phil took a slow, deep breath and let it out. His next question sounded astonishingly expressionless: “What are you doing to me?”

“This is the wrong question, agent.” Loki grinned. 

“Wh- What do you need from me?”

“Now this is better.” Loki finished his brandy in a single gulp and rose from the chair, having left his empty glass on the seat.

Though Phil could see every fold, every buckle and seemingly unnecessary zipper on Loki’s armor, a part of him still couldn’t believe that the slowly approaching god was real. A part of him desperately wanted to believe that this was only his overactive imagination, a product of his overworked mind. Even as Loki’s chilly fingers brushed Phil’s arm, he wasn’t quite able to believe that this was reality. 

“It's not _you_ , who remembers the Nine Worlds”, Loki said quietly, leaning over to Coulson's face. “It’s _my_ memories. I need your access to SHIELD. So in the very truest sense, what I need is you. On the other hand, your personal access is no use to me; even if I made you want to help me, to take me there, it would not work. I need you, down to your chemical makeup, your memories and your very essence.” Loki was almost whispering and it sent a chill of strange mixture of primal fear and odd excitement down Phil’s spine. “I need all this, so when I make my copy of you, my version of agent Coulson will not just be _thinking like_ agent Coulson. It will _be_ him. He will assume that he is the only real one. All I need to do is to interfere with my memories within your prettily adaptive mind…”

Distantly, Phil was aware of his own sensations. He saw the crooked grin growing on Loki’s face. He felt the enormous, impossible weight of the man’s cloak as it pinned his arms to the armrests of the chair. He felt the nearly caressing touch of cold fingers on his face. He heard Loki whispering something about being extremely pleased with the toys that do his bidding.  
But all that he could really think of was reduced to a single thought.

Was he still agent Coulson — or was he already _assuming that he was the only real one_?

~°~°~

“What exactly is it that you need me to remember, Agent Sitwell?” Phil asks quietly, back in the present, in the interrogation room. 

“There was an explosion in your apartment.” Sitwell says, almost guilty. “On Wednesday. Originally we thought that the blast was supposed to kill you, sir, but the explosion took out part of the wall in the basement…” 

Phil listens, silently. He doesn’t remember any of that. 

“— we contacted the press; issued a release to avoid a scandal but— Mr. Stark’s body was found in that cavity in the wall; he was dismembered and cremated in the blast. If not for the destruction, we wouldn’t have found—“ 

Phil nods absently. He is remembering the dreams about the snakes, lurking in the cold shadows of Nilfheim.

“— our experts say that Mr. Stark was killed on Monday with your gun, which we still can’t locate. Then, Thursday morning we received information that you had been spotted in Nevada; we stopped looking for your remains in the debris of your apartment.”

“So, you found me alive.” Phil says, slowly. 

“Yes, sir- in the middle of the desert, in the trunk of some junker Volvo registered to a W.B. Joss, Iowa. Does this sound familiar to you, Sir?”

“No.” Phil rubs at his temple, finally allowing himself to look weary. “Can I – Sitwell, can I be frank with you?”

“Of course, sir.”

“It’s probably a good thing that I don’t remember any of that. Did I already sign the temporary suspension-“

“No, sir, leave the paperwork to us. Director Fury agrees with the medical staff; you need to be available for them at all times during the next week.”

“Fine.” Phil says and nods curtly. “If you’re the man in charge of this then I can trust you with the delicacies of the reports.” Agent Sitwell nods. “May I go?” Phil asks. 

“Yes, you are dismissed.”

“Can you give my condolences to Miss Potts and Colonel Rhodes, agent?” Phil asks quietly before leaving the interrogation room. He can feel the heavy glare from Sitwell as he retreats. 

Once again, Phil remembers nothing from that morning. 

What he does remember is Asgard; the high, gleaming towers. He remembers the biting chill of the winds of Jotunheim. And he remembers himself pressing his side arm to his chin and pulling the trigger. 

_That_ was Wednesday. 

He also remembers that on Wednesday morning, he poured gasoline over a body that looked exactly like him. He remembers setting the fuse and detonation plug into the bomb that leveled his apartment building- the resulting explosion hid all traces of the wiretaps and bugs. He remembers where he left his helmet, just as he remembers that it’s not really _his_. He remembers himself dismembering dead Tony Stark on Monday. He remembers himself speaking to alive Tony Stark, later, on Thursday. He can’t decide which version of the past week is real, for he remembers at least three possible versions that don’t match.

He remembers Loki’s chilling smile, reflected in his mirror and he clearly remembers falling asleep Sunday night, before the nightmare had set in. 

He remembers all of this. And yet, all he’s able to take from that is that he still exists. _Memini, ergo sum._ It’s almost too easy to not be scared by it, but that’s not even the problem that Phil faces. 

No, the problem is that he’s still not completely sure if he’s conscious right now.


End file.
